Classical CD releases

More centenary presents for the great Russian composer, the umpteenth recent recording of the late, despairing 14th symphony, coupled with the much earlier, experimental third , each rendered with great authority by Mariss Jansons. Also from EMI comes a new recording (599560) of three of his string quartets, Nos 3, 7 and 8 by the St Lawrence String Quartet, whose devotion to these multicoloured works shines through their elegant playing.

Maxwell Davies, A Portrait (Naxos)

This eclectic portrait of the output of the Master of the Queen's Musick is no less valuable for the fact that these days you can download your own choices from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies's website. With an expert guide from Roderic Dunnett in the accompanying booklet, these two discs off er bite-size samples of such works as the trumpet sonata, the Purcell parodies, Eight Songs for a Mad King and Worldes Blis. Along with half an hour of the composer in conversation, the second disc contains clips from his Mass and his opera, The Doctor of Myddfai. A handy 'Max' primer.

Schubert, Sonatas for Violin and Piano(Mecenat Musical ZZT)

Dedicated to his brother Ferdinand, with whom he planned to play them, these four sonatas are proof positive that Schubert had reached true musical maturity even before he was 20. In the hands of Midori Seiler, playing an 1814 Franz Geissenhof, and Jos van Immerseel, on a copy of an 1814 Viennese fortepiano by Johann Peter Fritz, they sound much as one imagines they would when played by the brothers Schubert. No 2 in A minor is especially poignant, the others as bursting with lyrical energy and emotion as anything Schubert ever wrote.